Due to the security situation, the Haifa International Film Festival management announced on Tuesday that the festival will be postponed from its planned opening date of October 15 and instead will take place from December 31-January 11.
The decision was made by Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav, in accordance with the directives of the Home Front Command. The festival is normally held during Sukkot and has been rescheduled to coincide with Hanukkah.
The festival management said that the festival, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, will take advantage of the postponement to add new, acclaimed movies from leading international festivals and will work to preserve the Israeli and international film program planned for the original dates.
Home Front Command regulations
Yahav said, "Until this morning, I held consultations with the commanders of the Home Front Command, out of a strong desire to hold the international festival on time, that is, during Sukkot. Unfortunately, this will not be possible, and we will wait patiently until December, when the successful festival will merge with the Holiday of Holidays event this season. The combination of both events will make Haifa a particularly attractive center in December. Until then, we will pray for better, quieter days and the return home of the hostages.”
This year’s festival was planned to open with the movie, The Seed of the Sacred Fig by Iranian dissident director Mohammad Rasoulof. Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius was set to be the guest of honor, and his latest film, an animated drama about the Holocaust, The Most Precious of Cargoes, was on the festival program.
Last year’s festival was set to end on the evening of October 7, but it was canceled in the morning when the war broke out. On October 5, 2023, Dani Rosenberg’s movie, The Vanishing Soldier, about a soldier who goes AWOL from a fictional war in Gaza, won the Israeli Feature Film Competition, and this and other prizes were given out at a festive reception at the Botanica Hotel. This year, Rosenberg’s new movie, Of Dogs and Men, about a girl searching for her dog after the massacre in Nir Oz, is set to take part.
For updates about the festival, go the website at haifaff.co.il.